Assembly Leadership Responds to Proposed Eklutna Fish & Wildlife Program

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Anchorage Assembly Leadership issued the following response to the Proposed Fish and Wildlife Program for Eklutna River released yesterday by the Project Owners Group:

​We are very disappointed that the Project Owners submitted a proposed plan to the Governor over the objections and concerns of community members, the Native Village of Eklutna and the Anchorage Assembly.

For nearly a century, migration of Eklutna River salmon has been blocked by hydroelectric dams and impacted by water diversions that have badly degraded the condition of the river and uprooted the cultural traditions of the Dena'ina people. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to right this wrong and do something that benefits our entire community by restoring the Eklutna River.

Instead of working with the community to achieve this vision, the two private electric companies, with the support of the Bronson Administration, have made deals behind closed doors and withheld important information from the community and the Assembly. Their ill-conceived, incomplete and incompetent solution has very little public support and puts Municipal taxpayers on the hook for an expensive solution that ballooned by an additional $15 million this last week and stops a mile short of full river restoration. The Project Owners have repeatedly ignored the input and wishes of the Native Village of Eklutna, including their new alternative proposal for river restoration.

Overnight, the cost of the project increased from $57,000,000 to $72,000,000. The municipal taxpayer is on the hook for 19% of this cost but has had no say in how the plan is shaped. That's $13,680,000 in 2024 dollars. With the tax cap in mind, this proposed plan is a financial time bomb that will likely come at the cost of school funding, neighborhood policing, and snow plowing, and it doesn't even fix the problem the 1991 Agreement was created to solve.

The Project Owners not only ignored valuable input, they also used this process to secretly negotiate Anchorage's access to drinking water for the next two decades. The confidential term sheet, which is now public, goes so far as to prohibit the water utility from speaking about the proposed plan in any way that might be critical of it, regardless of costs and impacts the Municipality may need to mitigate.

Although this process has been touted as open and transparent, it has been anything but. Instead, closed-door deals, carefully orchestrated public meetings and last-minute ballooning costs are what define the proposed plan. We simply cannot accept the process or the outcome.

In solidarity with our neighbors at the Native Village of Eklutna, we pledge to continue our pursuit to reclaim the Municipality's vote and develop a transparent solution that reflects the voices, needs and values of the residents of Anchorage.

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CONTACT

​Christopher Constant |Assembly Chair
District 1, North Anchorage
[email protected]

Meg Zaletel | Assembly Vice Chair
District 4, Midtown Anchorage
[email protected] ​